There is a tiny, tiny chance the world could end tomorrow.

I for one trust the people conducting the experiment and cant wait to see the results (hopefully I'll be able to make something of them:P)

And am I the only who heard its not actually being turned on till Oct 21st?

And if the world did end, I could safely say I'd die happy, 1, Having done the best I could with my life considering who I am and 2, All the people who have aggrevated me throughout my life would go as well

I believe the next one is the ILC, International Linear Collider I think.

I think George Bush has actually been reasonably kind to science in the USA, especially with NASA. He was the one who set funds aside for NASA's moon-base program (To have a manned base on the moon by 2021). While saying that, the US government doesn't fund stem-cell research - It relies on private funding.

I damn-well forgot to watch that Cromwell thing too - bugger. RTÉ might repeat it at the weekend, you think?

Kevin

I don't think Bush has a brain, full-stop. There is probably a little alien pulling cogs inside his head; an alien who's intention is to destroy Earth. I was watching BBC Newsnight last night and it was a special on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. I was reminded of the sheer incompetence and lies that Bush's administration brough to the world. If he was the leader of any other country, I am sure that he would be brought before an international court.

I kinda just skimmed through this thread, but as astronomy is of great interest to me, I feel the need to post this.

Whoever thought that creating a black hole with the LHC would cause the destruction of earth has no concept of physics or astronomy, other than what they see in decades-old science fiction movies. The LHC collides protons. If a black hole were to form from the collision of two of these protons, it would have a mass no greater than both the protons (or about one hydrogen atom, the smallest and simplest atom).

Now, in the extremely unlikely event that one of these micro black holes is created (keeping in mind that under the Standard Model of particle physics, the energy of the LHC is far too low to produce a black hole), it would have no real effect on its surroundings for several reasons:

- Gravity is a function of distance. As stated before, the mass of a black hole would not, under any circumstance, be more than the mass of the original object(s) from which it formed. From a distance, the gravitational pull of a black hole is no different than the gravitational pull of the original object. The smaller the mass of the original object, the smaller the minimum safe distance. With this in mind...

- A black hole is infinitely dense. As matter collapses into itself, it becomes more dense. The denser an object, the smaller and more compact it is, and the greater its gravity is at its surface. The greater the surface gravity, the greater the escape velocity (how fast you need to go to overcome the gravitational pull of the object). If an object is allowed to continually collapse, the escape velocity from its surface will eventually surpass the speed of light. The point at which this happens is called the Schwarzschild radius or event horizon, and is the "point of no return." The event horizon would appear to an outside observer as the outermost edge of the black hole. The Schwarzschild radius is proportional to mass - if the sun were a black hole, it would be about six kilometers in diameter. The earth would be no larger than a small marble. A micro black hole formed by the collision of two protons would be incredibly low-mass. Such a black hole would be so miniscule, it would exist at or just above a quantum scale. With such a tiny event horizon, the 'minimum safe distance' is so small as to be practically nonexistant.

- Black holes are also not eternal. Quantum effects cause them to lose mass in the form of Hawking radiation (so named because it was Stephen Hawking who theorized it). The smaller the black hole, the faster it decays. A micro black hole with the mass of a small atom would decay very rapidly. This not only causes the black hole to shrink and become less dangerous, but ultimately leads to the disappearance of the black hole. The decay can be negated if the black hole is actively consuming more mass than it is losing, but a micro black hole would be unable to attract and consume enough matter to do so.

- Knowing all that we now do about the nature of black holes, a micro black hole, if it existed long enough, would float harmlessly through the earth and anything else. One could pass through your body both without your knowledge and without doing any physical harm.

The claims that the LHC could produce a black hole that would devour the earth are absurd and have little basis in reality. The YouTube videos are, in my opinion, just stupid. The sheer number of factual errors in the first video alone make me shake my head in disgust. Not only is the very thought of a micro black hole expanding so rapidly ridiculous, but you would NEVER have a black hole that expands disproportionately to the mass of matter which it consumes. If an earth-mass black hole is less than a couple centimeters across, how could a black hole possibly grow hundreds of meters across after consuming a couple buildings and some land? Such a concept of the world's destruction is purely science fiction.

that was a bloody good explanation cosmos especially with the black holes. you actually posted what i was gonna put here tho, but im glad you did cos you did a way better job than i would have done by a mile.

an interesting link http://lsag.web.cern.ch/lsag/LSAG-Report.pdf
its a pdf but it works alright on my vista.

another interesting link: http://www.labreporter.com/
if you follow some links you will get to some good videos. if they are in seperate parts then when it finnishes you have to click on the next video on the scroller thing that comes up at the bottom, or go to its page on youtube by clicking on it and finding the parts on the related videos section.

Thanks Asuka. I am fairly busy though with college work though, and both TVs are occupied (Champions League for dad, and mam's watching something she recorded earlier!).

walrusgod wrote:I believe the next one is the ILC, International Linear Collider I think.

Am I right in saying that the particles in this one will be accelerated by radiation and not magnets?

Good lord... ...I could have watched it so. Then again, there's been so much talk about it around that I could probably do without getting opinionated on it.

Thanks for the History revision. Cromwell was a person with whom I found great interest in during my time in school. However, I won't believe any opinion anyone makes about him until I have heard the story from the man himself. Since that will never be possible, I will never be swayed either side of the argument.

Kevin

What's this? - RichardDawkins.net?! I heard about this news though and just laughed when I read it. You know, they say that 100% of big projects like this are either overbudget or delayed. I think they should add that they typically never get running off the ground smoothly either. I mean, how on earth could they let all of that Liquid Nitrogen leak out? That stuff is very expensive.